


(i’m falling all over myself to) lick your heart, taste your hell

by fitz_y



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Body Worship, Future Fic, M/M, Male Slash, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-03
Updated: 2011-05-03
Packaged: 2017-10-24 22:24:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fitz_y/pseuds/fitz_y
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur’s body is marked with scars; Eames likes to take his time with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(i’m falling all over myself to) lick your heart, taste your hell

**Author's Note:**

> This is a cleaned-up (grammatically, not pornographically) version of a piece I posted a few weeks back for the prompt [ scars](http://cherrybina.livejournal.com/211815.html?thread=14765415#t14765415) at [](http://cherrybina.livejournal.com/profile)[**cherrybina**](http://cherrybina.livejournal.com/) ’s [kink fest](http://cherrybina.livejournal.com/211815.html). I am known for _always_ mishearing lyrics and getting into long debates that I inevitably lose. The title comes from one of my typical mishearings. But for this fic, the way I misheard it seemed a more fitting title than the actual song lyric, so I thought I’d keep it.
> 
> I owe so many thanks to my darling peeps, my awesome team of betas: [](http://yllenk.livejournal.com/profile)[**yllenk**](http://yllenk.livejournal.com/) , who, among other amazing feats of beta’ing, kept my Eames from speaking in South Jersey dialect; [](http://la-rrrubio.livejournal.com/profile)[**la_rrrubio**](http://la-rrrubio.livejournal.com/) , who spent a full three hours discussing this fic with me on skype, and even busted out office supplies to use as explanatory props; [](http://skellywag.livejournal.com/profile)[**skellywag**](http://skellywag.livejournal.com/) , whose mastery of English spelling and grammar may very well be the best in all the land, and who very graciously gave this fic her careful and thoughtful attention despite being in the middle of a move. ♥ to you all! All remaining mistakes are very much my own.

“Thirty-nine,” Eames whispers into the lined skin of Arthur’s knuckle. His tongue flicks out, grazing over the star of white on Arthur’s ring finger. “Thirty-nine,” he repeats, softly, to himself.

“What are you on about?” Arthur laughs, rolling onto his side, his dark eyes small with sleep.

“This makes thirty-nine. Why have I never seen this one before?”

“Ah, that.”

Sated, lazy with the aftershocks of an orgasm, Eames languidly sucks Arthur’s finger into his mouth, letting his teeth scrape lightly over the skin, lapping at the tacky remains of his own seed between Arthur’s fingers.

Arthur blinks, lets his eyes drift closed.

“So?” Eames asks after releasing Arthur’s finger and shifting closer so he can nuzzle sloppy kisses and soft bites into the stubble at Arthur’s neck.

Floating loose-limbed and high on the velvety cocktail of bliss and exhaustion, Eames inhales the scent of sex and sweat lingering on Arthur’s skin.

Arthur swats lightly at the back of Eames’ head, but Eames knows he’ll get his way. Arthur is too fucked out and lethargic to stop him. It’s been two vicious months since the last time he saw Arthur and tonight they did it the usual way first—speeding relentlessly into each other, pushing and pulling until they’re raw and spent—but Eames still hasn’t gotten enough of Arthur. He needs the texture of his skin, the marked secrets of Arthur’s body, the tastes and smells of every corner.

“So, how’d you get it?”

“Dog bite. Fourteen years old.” Arthur says on an exhale as his hand comes to rest, warm and unmoving, in Eames’ hair. Eames lies there for a moment, taking that in, resting his lips against the pulse vibrating slowly under Arthur’s skin, before pulling back, encircling Arthur’s right wrist and bringing his hand back to his mouth so he can lick at Arthur’s finger again.

At the feel of Arthur’s finger against his tongue, desire, warm and thick as honey, spreads across his chest. And it’s perfectly ridiculous, he thinks, that, after _hours_ of brutal fucking, the press of Arthur’s finger over his tongue could send desire sparking through him yet one more time. His body wars with itself: muscles spent and lax, cock sated, mind dazed, drowsy, yet still, that hot curl of longing threads its way through his core, making him crave more.

“That makes it your first.”

“Yeah, I guess it is,” Arthur yawns. “You’re not gonna do that thing you do, are you?” Arthur’s voice crackles low and raspy.

“Yeah, yeah I am.”

“Okay.” Arthur shrugs, keeping his eyes closed, and tumbles onto his back, away from Eames.

Eames just grins, because, from Arthur, _okay_ paired with a shrug is like a golden seal of approval. He pushes himself up so he’s perched over Arthur’s body, staring at it like the map, the story that it is. A flush of need, of possessiveness washes over him as he takes in the sight of Arthur, open, readable. After three years of fucking Arthur—well three years and five months with some unhappy desperate breaks in between he’d prefer to forget—you’d think Eames would have already uncovered every patch of his skin, catalogued its uniqueness. But clearly, as the white star on the inside of Arthur’s knuckle shows, there are still hidden corners left for him to stumble upon.

Tonight, he’ll take them in the order that he discovered them.

Keeping his right hand scratching low over the dark trail of hair on Arthur’s abdomen, Eames relishes the slide of skin on skin as he skims down the side of Arthur’s body, past his slim hips, his thighs, to kiss his way over both knees, supporting himself on one hand as he lowers his face to Arthur’s right calf and runs the flat of his tongue in long, wet stripes over the sandpaper-like swathe of skin on the side of his leg from mid-shin to hip. A rough, curved mark of the highway, a long ridge of dark beige framed by messy, arcing swipes of rust-brown.

He remembers their first time.

 _Frantic need drove him as he swung Arthur’s leg up to his shoulder. He was poised to thrust into him, when he froze, palm locked around the texture, then, despite Arthur’s protests, he craned his neck to_ see _._

 _“Fucking get on with it, Eames.”_

 _“Tell me how you got this first.”_

 _Arthur frowned, his eyes narrowed._

 _“Knocked off a motorcycle. The road left me something to remember her by. Now get inside me or I swear to God, I will shoot you.”_

Although Arthur can’t feel it, Eames swirls his tongue over every bump and valley, fueling a slow burn that will roll through him in hot waves as he catalogues all the secret textures on Arthur’s body that only he’s allowed to touch. He repositions himself, moving up the outside of Arthur’s thigh, tonguing the smooth rust-brown. His teeth sink in slowly right where the color begins. “Can you feel that?” he asks softly with his face still pressed into Arthur’s leg.

“I can feel your fat chest on my sore dick,” Arthur retorts languidly.

Chuckling, Eames bites a little harder. He is draped fully across Arthur now, getting as much skin on skin contact as he possibly can: one hand in between his legs, supporting himself on the elbow of the other, splaying the fingers of that hand against the rough scar tissue, shoulders resting on Arthur’s thighs, right below his hips, pecs brushing above Arthur’s groin, knees grounded on the mattress. It feels good. Good to cover Arthur like this, good to have Arthur open and limp underneath him. Good to mark Arthur with his mouth. Good to go slow. Good to know he’ll have time to taste every mark, every moment of near fatality, every moment of life. Good to make them both wait for one last, burning release.

Finally, he pulls off and pushes himself up and away. “Sore, huh? You’re the one who thought coming only once from my cock in your arse wasn’t nearly enough.”

“Mhm.”

“Flip over for me, love.” He coaxes Arthur onto his stomach and stretches out on top of him, sighing on the edge of pleasure and pain as he rubs against Arthur’s arse. Desire twists low in his gut, climbing into his groin. He’s so spent it bloody hurts as he rallies one more time; hissing, he begins to harden at the brush of Arthur’s skin on his oversensitive cock. Arthur moans underneath him, and the sound sinks under his skin, sends want skittering into his chest, constricts his breathing. He could get off like this, just rutting against the long expanse of Arthur’s butt and back as Arthur squirms and groans slowly under him.

But he’s got thirty-seven more spots to visit first. He inhales deeply, filling his lungs with the thick smell of sex in the air, trying to steady himself, and settles back on his knees between Arthur’s legs.

His hands knead at the tension in Arthur’s arse as he stares at the angry marks, the raised red Xs and Os smeared up his back, like swirling, drunken games of tic-tac-toe, starting a hand’s width above Arthur’s butt and running parallel to his spine. This is where it all began, he thinks, with these twenty-three reminders of shrapnel.

Incredibly, it had taken him a full two weeks of fucking Arthur before he’d found these. But, that, of course, had been Arthur’s fault. From the moment that Arthur had snapped and gone from cursing Eames’ laziness to yanking Eames’ hair and yelling his way between his lips, Eames had barely had any say in what happened. And if Arthur couldn’t be bothered to take off his own shirt before dropping to his knees and swallowing Eames whole, and if Arthur always ground out specific orders about how Eames should touch him, where to place his hands, and if Arthur preferred to be fucked into the wall or into the mattress instead of on all fours, then, well, Eames had barely had the breath to lodge a complaint. And, when Eames had tried to wrestle Arthur out of his clothes, Arthur had just knocked Eames’ hands away from the buttons of his shirt, fisted Eames’ cock in a wrenching, almost painful grip, and ordered him to stop wasting time and just fuck him already.

 _Two weeks into their desperate, hurried affair for which neither of them had a label, he spotted them._

 _In the process of rolling a condom over Eames’ cock, Arthur paced backwards towards the window in the dim light of their hotel room as Eames shuffled with him step by step, trousers open, riding low on his waist. Arthur quirked a grin at Eames as his fingers worked over him. Arthur had long since shucked off his pants, but his starched white shirt remained buttoned, a thin, but forbidding wall over his chest. Eames curled his fingers into the fabric at Arthur’s sides, tracking the clench of muscles there. Bunching the fabric, he rucked it up, high over Arthur’s hips, and only received a frown from Arthur for his efforts. Arthur forcefully dislodged Eames’ hands and redirected them to his arse as he collided against the glass pane behind him._

 _But in that flash before the cloth of Arthur’s shirt was yanked from Eames’ fist, the dark window directly behind him had reflected the skin of Arthur’s lower back. A messy blur of white and red, not the smooth pale expanse that Eames had expected. Eames registered that vision and squirreled it away, content to follow Arthur’s lead for now. Palming the backs of his thighs, lifting them to his waist, Eames surged forward into him, effectively pinning him to the tall windowpane._

 _Arthur’s legs clamped around Eames’ waist like a vice; Eames planted one hand by Arthur’s head, leaving a smudged palm print on the glass, while the fingers of his other hand dug for purchase on Arthur’s butt. Far below them, the blinking lights of Tokyo glimmered._

 _Neither spoke, the scrape of breath in their throats, the wet sounds of flesh the only sounds in the room. And then, just as Arthur tilted his head back, cresting high on the wave of an approaching orgasm, Eames trailed his fingers up, sweeping over his sacrum, pressing higher into his back, until he felt it: the bumps, ridges, marred inconsistencies in Arthur’s smooth skin._

 _“Shit, Arthur, what the hell are these scars? You have so many of them,” he panted, as his fingers clawed hard into Arthur’s flesh, feeling the path of raised marks._

 _“Just shut up.” Arthur snapped his hips to meet Eames’ thrusts, turned his head to bite at Eames’ forearm._

 _“No.”_

 _Suddenly everything clicked into place. The fact that he had never seen Arthur without his shirt on. How Arthur always maneuvered them into a position that he wanted. The quick snarky reprimand and subtle tensing around his eyes when Eames’ fingers wandered above his arse. The way Arthur always knew exactly where and how he wanted Eames’ hands on him. Arthur wasn’t just the bossiest bottom Eames had ever been with, he was hiding something. And, though it took superhuman effort to ignore the sharp desire coursing through him, and Eames deserved a bloody award for it, he stopped. He stilled his hips and dropped his hand, locking both palms over Arthur’s thighs to pin him in place._

 _“Just . . . show me, yeah?” He panted into Arthur’s mouth and pressed his forehead to Arthur’s._

 _“What? Why the hell did you stop?”_

 _“Because it will be better this way. Let’s take this to the bed. So I can take your shirt off, I wanna see.”_

 _“No.”_

 _“C’mon, let me take it off you.” Eames moved to drag his hands over Arthur’s shirt._

 _Arthur stilled against him and pressed his cheek against the glass so he wasn’t looking at him. His jaw was set rigidly. “I said no, Eames.”_

 _Eames pushed his bare chest into Arthur’s tightly wound restraint, felt the hard scrape of the buttons of Arthur’s shirt against his muscles, the brush of fabric over his hard nipples. He clamped down on the ache spiraling out of control inside him._

 _“Get off me,” Arthur ground out._

 _Eames bit down on his ear. “Look at me, Arthur,” he pleaded softly._

 _“I said get off me.”_

 _“Arthur, take your shirt off.”_

 _“Fuck you.” The words were a low growl._

 _“Arthur,” Eames tried to pitch his voice smoothly, to be the calm that he suspected Arthur needed right now. Under him Arthur felt like a tightened bowstring about to snap. “I rather like fucking you. And I don’t really plan on stopping anytime soon. How long do you think you can keep me from getting you completely naked?”_

 _“I can keep you from doing anything.” Arthur replied with a tight certainty that made Eames wince. “I could break your neck in under five seconds and you know it.”_

 _“Darling,” he spoke into Arthur’s temple, felt the raging pulse there for a minute as he searched for words. “Darling, you’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. Let me see all of you.”_

 _Arthur barked out a short, harsh laugh. “Try another line on me, Mr. Eames. Because that one’s not getting you anywhere.” The quiet flatness in his voice cut into Eames like a fine razor._

 _Eames dropped his hands. He maneuvered himself out of Arthur and stumbled backwards. Arthur came at him with a sharp cross, his fist slamming heavily into Eames’ jaw. For a breath, Eames just stood there, panting, clamping down on his body’s instinct to lash out and pummel Arthur. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Arthur tense for another hit. So he spun and planted both hands on Arthur’s shoulders and shoved him back against the window again._

 _“That was not a line. I fucking meant it, you psycho,” he spat out before striding out of the room, shirtless, only just remembering to tuck himself in and to button his trousers as he shouldered open the door._

Eames sucks the raised skin between his lips, rolling it gently over his teeth, feeling the myriad peaks scattered over Arthur’s back. Arthur moans underneath him, cants his hips up ever so slightly. Eames knows that the skin around the scars remains hypersensitive, ticklish even for Arthur. And this is what Eames treasures most, these quiet moments when Arthur’s too exhausted to stop Eames from making love to these scars that sweep like bird tracks across the left half of his lower back.

One by one he moves over the marks. The taste of the sweat on Arthur’s skin, mixed with the heady flavor of sex and the pungent smell of his own seed dribbling out of Arthur’s arsehole is like a shot of whiskey to his senses. Eames considers holding Arthur open to run his tongue over that puckered, puffy, wet furl of muscle, considers eating the taste of his own sex out of Arthur until Arthur’s thrashing with want under him, keeping him hovering on the fine point between too-much and never-enough until he wrenches one final, shuddering orgasm from Arthur just by the insistent push of his tongue in his arse. But tonight, he has a better plan.

Eames swirls his tongue over a cluster of marks high on Arthur’s ribs, sensing the fine detail of changing surfaces. Blindfolded, he could identify Arthur from the feel of his skin alone, the pattern of familiar textures under his tongue. Arthur squirms, flops his head around and finally looks back at Eames. “You do know what that does to me,” he states dryly. Eames imagines the skittering hot sensation flittering across Arthur’s skin in the wake of his tongue.

“I’m only just beginning. Go big or go home, I always say, darling,” Eames murmurs. “Think you can handle round three?”

“You’re fucking insatiable. Ever heard of a refractory period?”

“Not when I haven’t seen you for two months.”

“Are you trying to kill me?” Arthur huffs and drops his head to the mattress. Of course Eames knows what it does to him; that’s why he’s doing it, to make Arthur feel as good as he feels doing this. He’s already brimming with need again; it’s flowing towards his smarting groin from his fingertips, the top of his head, the arches of his feet, he exhales slowly, clamping down on his own desire, drawing all his focus into his lips and mouth as he ducks forward and tastes the jaggedness of the first Z-shaped mark just over a hand’s breadth away from the cleft in Arthur’s arse. He licks at it, feels it with his whole mind, his whole body, and thinks, this, yes, this is Arthur: this layered complexity, this unique constellation of sensations under his lips and tongue, this hidden remnant of hurt.

 _Arthur barely spoke to Eames for the rest of that job. Three whole weeks. A week longer than they’d been fucking. Eames jacked himself off at night, punishingly fast, to the memory of the texture of the scars on Arthur’s back._

 _It was only when Ariadne dragged them out for a celebratory final drink, ordering round after round of blow job shots, that Arthur’s cool reserve finally chipped. At some point between the eleventh and twelfth round, Ariadne slipped away to flit around the dance floor, grinding with the air as though the music were playing just for her._

 _Arthur leaned over the space in the booth where Ariadne had been wedged between them._

 _“Come back to my hotel room.” Arthur’s lips squeezed into a tight line and he wasn’t meeting Eames’ eyes._

 _Eames’ cock jumped to life despite the closed tone of Arthur’s voice. He quirked an eyebrow at him and glanced back to where Ariadne was undulating to a slow heavy beat._

 _“Am I going to get punched in the face again?”_

 _“No.”_

 _“Are you going to take your shirt off this time?” Ariadne was swaggering over to the bar now, planting her hands on the counter and pushing herself up to speak to the bartender._

 _Arthur didn’t respond._

 _Eames snapped his head around, catching Arthur’s gaze. “Then, the answer is no, Arthur. It’s all or nothing, darling. I don’t deal well with scraps of attention.”_

Arthur begins shuddering, full-body twitches, as Eames kisses up Arthur’s back, moving quickly and sloppily now, knowing that a soft pulse of arousal is seeping back into Arthur’s body.

“God, this is gross. All your spit is making me cold,” he complains half-heartedly. Eames ignores the comment and just licks more determinedly at the crimson marks raking across Arthur’s skin at the back of his ribcage, imagining how Arthur is starting to feel the same biting fever pitch of need that’s ratcheting through his own muscles.

Arthur moans, a low-pitched noise that seems to escape him despite himself. At that sound, Eames can’t keep his hands still anymore; he twines a hand between Arthur’s legs and toys gently with the soft skin of his balls. He skims just the very tips of his fingers over his perineum, and over the base of his cock trapped against the sheets, feels how the blood is rallying in Arthur’s body, how his cock is slowly hardening, powerful steeliness under smooth skin.

“Eames . . . this is too much. I’m so fucking sore.” But Arthur’s too depleted to put any energy into his grumbling, so it comes out a breathless whine.

“Shhh. This is going to be so good for you. I promise.”

 _Eames had just finished up a job in Berlin. A rather slapdash affair. He was rushing to clean out his hotel room in Mitte, throwing clothes and semi-automatic weapons into a duffel bag when there was a knock at his door. He pulled out his Smith & Wesson revolver from where it was tucked into the back of his jeans._

 _“Put down the gun and open the door, Eames,” Arthur called loudly._

 _Eames swung the door open and Arthur stalked into the room, stopping in front of the wide bed. He spun and glared at Eames, squaring his hands on his hips._

 _Eames waited._

 _Arthur flicked his gaze over the bed, obviously taking in Eames’ hurried attempts at packing._

 _“Mr. Eames, it looks like you have two choices here: You can flee Berlin or you can fuck me.” He shrugged off his black pinstriped suit jacket._

 _Eames crossed his arms in front of his chest and watched him._

 _The tendon in Arthur’s jaw stood out, and he flinched ever so slightly as he unbuttoned his waistcoat._

 _Eames swallowed, not wanting to let himself believe._

 _“I’m never one to back down from a challenge,” Arthur whispered, as if it was some kind of explanation._

 _Eames half expected that he was going to get a slow strip tease, that Arthur would play coyly with buttons and fabric, drive Eames mad as he shed his layers. But instead Arthur ripped his waistcoat and shirt off in a rush, as if they were burning him, as if this was a task he had to get through as speedily as possible. Eames’ breath caught in his chest as if all the air had been sucked out of the room._

 _Shucking off his trousers and pants jerkily, he still wasn’t meeting Eames’ eyes._

 _And then he was standing there, long lines of skin, suddenly small._

 _“Are you just going to gape like an idiot?”_

 _Eames strode over to Arthur and yanked him against his chest, wrapping both arms around his back. Arthur bit his neck, hard._

Eames pulls his hand away, and Arthur whines, a breathless little sound that goes straight to Eames’ aching cock. Eames is half-hard now, painfully so, blood straining in sore muscles and tissue. Like the delicious, pulsing sting of a vicious bite, everything narrows down to the sensations of need and exhaustion throbbing in his prick. He grunts and traces his fingertips over Arthur’s skin, imagining himself painting white stripes of his semen over the myriad red marks on Arthur’s back, then rubbing it in, feeling the texture of slippery fluid over ridged flesh, lapping it up afterwards, feeling Arthur writhe under him as he swirls his tongue over every hypersensitive, overstimulated patch of skin. Arthur’s body is _his_ , all of it, his to mark, to taste, and now that they’ve burned through their initial frenzied need, he has all the time in the world to remind them both of that.

He lifts off, ignoring the marks on the other side of Arthur’s back in favor of flipping him over again.

The order he found them in.

 _His hands ran over the naked skin on Arthur’s back for the first time. “Let me see you.”_

 _“Fine, but don’t expect this to turn me on.”_

 _“Noted.”_

 _Eames moved behind Arthur. “So where’d you get these?” he asked, striving to keep his tone light as he skimmed his fingers over the angry marks. “Shrapnel?”_

 _“Afghanistan. Hand grenade. Ended my military career in under a second. Honorable discharge.” His words were short and clipped._

 _Arthur fidgeted under his ministrations. But Eames took his time as he discovered where a knife had been, where bullet holes had torn into him._

 _Finally, he crashed forward, taking Arthur’s mouth, sinking all his want, all his awe into him. Arthur met his tongue stroke for stroke, kissed him thoroughly. Eames groaned and Arthur was shoving him back onto the bed, digging into the duffel bag for a condom and lube before knocking it off the bed, and then he was sinking down, riding Eames viciously, locking him between his thighs, silently and furiously pounding down on him until sweat was dripping down Eames’ armpits, beading on his upper lip, until tension was snaking up his body starting somewhere below his toes, skittering up his spine, and he cried out hoarsely with his climax._

Tucking himself against Arthur’s side, Eames licks lightly over the stark white line that paints an arc over Arthur’s triceps in his left arm. Knife fight. He traces over the taut lines of tendons and veins in Arthur’s arm, feeling the tightly-wound power there, remembering how Arthur’s arm muscles stood out in relief earlier that night, as he held himself up on hands and knees, braced himself against the floor while Eames thrust relentlessly into him, eventually slamming them both forward to collapse on the ground.

He lingers there before sliding down, gently brushing his throbbing cock over the coarse hair of Arthur’s unmarked thigh, inhaling sharply at the contact. His tongue lands on the spray of five bullet entry wounds in the corner above Arthur’s left hip. Dime-sized, perfectly white. He laps at each in succession, back and forth, up and down, drawing his awareness back to the feel of Arthur under his lips, tasting how the skin’s not ridged here, but it’s not quite smooth, either. Rough, tight indentations.

Eames quickens the pace of his strokes on the hardened bullet wounds, mouthing small groans over bone and flesh, bucking his hips forward against the sheets under him in shallow thrusts, allowing himself just the ghost of faint pressure which sends twisting aches of desire spiraling through him, but is still not enough to send him over the edge. Arthur’s practically panting now as Eames’ mouth speeds over him; his cock juts out flushed and long. Eames reaches over and brushes the backs of his fingertips against it, watches it jerk, hears Arthur grind out a groan.

“I think I’ll suck you off for this round,” Eames muses, barely able to get out the words over the dryness in his throat, his voice sounding wrecked and hoarse. “Much more fun than a hand job.” And he pulls away, cresting over the threshold of pain into blazing want, his own cock stiff with need. He’s closer now; he could reach down and pull himself off in a few strokes, but he exhales, coasting on sensations of pleasure as he manhandles Arthur back onto his stomach.

Arthur hisses at the contact with the sheets and pulses his hips against the bed, but Eames stills him with a warm palm on his arse.

“I’ll suck you off, love, but not yet. Not yet.”

“I can’t fucking believe you, Eames. This is too much, it’s too . . .” Arthur stutters.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” Eames purrs. He swallows over the warm, needy tightness reaching across his chest, and leans down to twirl his tongue over the matching set of bullet exit wounds on Arthur’s hip.

Eames wonders if he could ever keep Arthur still long enough to lick every spot of skin on his body. Starting at his toes, he’d cover him with his tongue, he’d spend hours at the back of his knees, just tasting, soothing. He could probably make Arthur come at least twice before he ever made it to his cock. His breath hitches in his throat; perilously close to coming himself, he feels everything constrict inside him at the image of Arthur, strung out on sensation, squirming on his stomach, wrists handcuffed to the headboard, as Eames licks, bites, stimulates the thin skin at the back of his knees for _hours_.

“Turn over for me one last time, darling.” The words are a hoarse rasp, but Arthur goes, flips over onto his back with a tense sigh, his hands scrabbling at the sheets, twisting them under his fingers.

“Eames, how long is this going to take? I can’t . . .” he whines in between short shallow breaths and Eames watches the quick rise and fall of his pale chest.

“Shush, love. Just a little longer, then I’ll give us both what we want. This one’s my favorite.” He leans down to tongue the arrow-straight line, over his ribs, pointing towards his heart. It’s white, edged in light red, and it stops right there, right where it needs to. Just below his heart.

He licks and licks, imagining he can feel the quick tattoo of Arthur’s heartbeat under his tongue, the muscle pushing life through him.

And this is where he wants to stay. Right here, with his lips over Arthur’s heart, with Arthur twisting and panting under him, with them both floating on the impossible, painful edge of being just about to plummet, just about to fall screaming into that blank, open space where desire explodes.

Arthur writhes to get his nipple closer to Eames’ tongue, as if he can’t help himself, as if he’ll expire right there if he can’t get Eames’ mouth exactly where he wants it. Twisting his nipple savagely between his fingers, Eames lifts off as Arthur cries out, arching up.

“Not yet. One more.”

He settles between the musky cradle of Arthur’s thighs, legs dangling off the bed, face pressed flush against Arthur’s inner thigh. For a moment he goes completely still, despite the need pricking through his own limbs, as he takes in the smells swamping his senses, the thick reminders of how many hours he’s had Arthur’s body, of how desperately he’s shown him he was missed.

“Flex your thigh muscle for me,” he orders, his voice crumbling on the last syllable.

“God damn it, Eames, just suck my cock,” Arthur complains as he lifts up quickly, as though a surge is running through his body, like a shock of electricity, but he complies.

The soft skin of his inner thigh dimples, revealing a small .22-caliber bullet exit wound. Eames loves this one because it’s a secret just for him; he likes to tell himself that none of Arthur’s partners ever managed to find it before, that it’s classified information he can keep locked up quietly in his own mind and body. Eames nuzzles it, his hair brushing against Arthur’s balls, which are a wet mess, and he’s sure that he’s got spunk in his hair by now, but Arthur’s bucking under him as he scrapes his cheek over the sensitive skin of his thighs, and Eames doesn’t give a damn what he looks like.

 _This one he found quite by accident. Stoned and kneeling in front of Arthur in the middle of their Vegas hotel room, Eames had been studying the pattern that the swirling red and yellow light from the street painted on Arthur’s skin in the dark room._

 _“Is this another bullet wound?”_

 _“Afghanistan. Same tour as the shrapnel, now are you going to suck my cock or what?”_

 _“Oh darling, clearly you are not high enough,” Eames responded, laughing at the imperiousness in Arthur’s voice as he stroked his fingers over the nearly invisible scar._

 _“Wait.” Eames was staggering up off his knees. “Where’s the entry wound?”_

 _“Get back on your knees, and I’ll show you afterwards.”_

Eames lifts up, sluggish with desire that has turned his whole body into one vibrating, stinging need to come, to explode all over the map of Arthur’s body. Below him, Arthur is wrecked: his cock a full, hard line, a flush creeping up his chest, except for the pale white of his scars, his mouth open on a moan. He writhes, fisting his fingers in his messy dark hair, clamping his other hand over the muscle of Eames’ shoulder, digging in below the collarbone, as though he’s steadying himself.

Leaning down, Eames brushes a quick kiss to the matching dimple on the outside of Arthur’s thigh, the nearly invisible entry wound, just to the right of the road abrasion.

Thirty-nine, he thinks. He lets out a whoosh of air, tugs hard on his own balls, trying to relax against the pressure spiraling through his body, knowing relief is close, knowing that in seconds they’re both going to tumble headlong into their climax. He positions himself right above Arthur’s cock, swipes his tongue over the pre-come glistening at the head, exhales.

“Stop teasing, Eames. Shit. Shit, shit,” he’s chanting, shaking, pushing up so his cock bumps against Eames’ lips. And it’s worth the wait; it’s always worth it just to hear the sounds that Arthur makes as he finally shatters into a million shards.

Eames is finished with going slowly.

Growling hungrily, he opens his jaw, relaxes his throat and greedily mouths his way down Arthur’s long cock. Keening, Arthur arches off the bed and into him, shoving himself farther down, bumping at the back of Eames’ throat. Finally, finally. Eames hollows his cheeks, loving how much of Arthur is filling his mouth now, how much of him he’s been able to taste tonight, how much of himself he’s left in fingerprints, traces of spit, and bite marks on Arthur’s body.

Feeling the hot sting of tears mixing with sweat in his eyes, he closes his eyes, listens to the pounding of blood in his body, the gulping breaths Arthur’s taking, the slick slide of Arthur’s straining cock between his lips, over his tongue.

And then Arthur’s yanking at his hair, fucking up into his mouth desperately, abandoning all rhythm and finesse, stilling under him and screaming hoarsely as he comes down his throat in short, hot spurts. The world narrows down to two things: Arthur’s warm seed in Eames’ throat, and desire storming through his body, threatening to rip it limb from limb. Eames reaches down, pulls himself off in long, painful strokes, crashing towards earth, climaxing with Arthur’s dick in his mouth, his hands sticky in his hair.

Eames flops to the side, muscles spent and throbbing as he curls into a fetal position around Arthur’s hip. He looks up when he hears him laugh, low, soft chuckles from his belly.

“Ow, fuck. Ow. Fucking A. Three times, Eames? Three times with no break. I’m amazed I had any load left to shoot.” He’s dragging the back of his hand over his eyes, before reaching down to tug at Eames’ hair. “C’mon. C’mere.”

“I missed you,” Eames says simply, laughing as he crawls up Arthur’s body and throws an arm over his chest.

For long minutes they lie perfectly still except for their unsteady inhales and exhales; Eames feels his sore body languidly returning to the world, to the bed sheets under him, the cool air in the room, the hum of cars outside their window.

Reaching out with his hand, he tugs Arthur’s fingers back towards him, examining the star inside his ring finger again. He sucks it into his mouth one last time, then intertwines his fingers with Arthur’s, pins their hands together over the thin white scar under Arthur’s heart, and closes his eyes, finally content.


End file.
